Drop that 25-pound dumbbell.
There's a new wave of equipment meant to fulfill your strength-training needs -- in the newest generation of colorful plastic tubing.
Stores have started carrying more variations of the bands, which are color-coded to represent different pounds of resistance.
"Resistance bands ... offer a different type of resistance and contraction in the muscle than using free weights," said Justin Mingo, a personal trainer at Gold's Gym. "It's not about being better or worse. To me, it's just about being different."
One of the advantages of resistance bands is that they are portable and can be used at home.
They also have a lower injury risk than free weights, Mingo said, because exercise enthusiasts tend to push the weight beyond a reasonable limit when using free weights.
Free weights are less forgiving of poor technique.
"With bands, you can get away with some diagonal patterns. You can get away with some horizontal patterns," said Jon Rhodes, physical therapist for the Ogden Clinic. "You have to do something pretty silly to hurt yourself (with resistance bands)."
How they work
Strength training with resistance bands has a different effect on the muscles than free weights.
Muscles have a maximum resistance with every exercise. With weights, the maximum resistance stops before the movement ends. In contrast, resistance bands always have tension.
"The benefit of resistance bands is they actually increase the perceived weight as you go through the contraction," Mingo said. "The nature of the band is to offer more resistance the farther it's stretched. It's going to be greater at the top of the contraction than it is going to be when you start."
That's also a downside, according to Molly Smith, fitness professor at Weber State University.
"That is exactly flip-flop of how muscles work," she said. "The muscles, because of the nature of the sliding filaments in them, are strongest when they are at a near resting length and get weaker the shorter (the filaments) become."
The bands, then, put more stress on the muscles when they are weakest and most vulnerable.
"That's probably not a good thing. It doesn't match the physiology of the muscle," Smith said.
No bulk
Programs for resistance bands have a different emphasis from those for free weights.
"They're definitely going to be more for people who aren't looking to build as much as they are to strengthen and tone," Mingo said. "Because you can't go heavy enough with them."
Bands have an approximate range of resistance pounds. One band could be rated 25 pounds to 40 pounds of force, depending on how far it is stretched and how it is positioned.
Mingo noted that you won't see bodybuilders reach for the stretchy bands when they are trying to add bulky muscles.
Time matters
During a workout, you are not focused on sets and repetitions as much as on the time spent pulling on the bands.
"You will need five or six bands to cover everything," Rhodes said. "From a timing standpoint, if I went to do 20 minutes of weights, I would have to do an hour of therapeutic bands."
Both free weights and resistance bands strengthen stabilizing muscles -- those muscles that are used in everyday life, in everything from throwing a ball to walking on a slick surface.
In that regard, both are better than weight machines.
"Machine weights are stable," Smith said. "There is the downside in that you don't have to use your stabilizing muscles."
Mix and match
To get the most benefit from resistance bands, consider combining them with free weights in a strength-training program.
Mingo practices that idea in his own fitness program.
"They (resistance bands) are a good way to mix up your workout," Mingo said. "Muscle confusion, especially after the last few years, has really been researched and found to really benefit an overall workout."
Muscles will adapt to an exercise routine if the user is maintaining the same workouts, and will cease to build.
Mingo said that constantly having the muscles guessing, by mixing free weights one day and bands another, will keep them strengthening.
Whether it's free weights, resistance bands or both -- you have to adhere to the main strengthening principle to work.
"You still have to fatigue," said Mingo. "You still have to push yourself outside a comfortable zone."
____________
IN THERAPY
Resistance bands have been used for years in physical therapy.
"For the rehab setting, it's perfect," said Jon Rhodes, physical therapist for the Ogden Clinic. "Most of the time in an injury setting, it's the small rotator cuff muscle. The rotator cuff is a rotational muscle, which is a different plane than just up and down. So you have to have some resistance going to work on the horizontal plane."
Therapists can actually identify the torn muscles -- for example, which of the four muscles involved with the rotator cuff is injured -- by using bands in various positions.
Comments